Teaching Maths - Capacity

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This page is all about teaching capacity to primary school students, especially in early childhood.

Useful web sites

  • Teaching Measures - capacity using litres and millilitres, simple but suitable for IWB
  • ABC Capacity game comparing containers of water - very simple
  • PBS Kids "Can you fill it?" - fill containers using different sized pots - containers also have different shapes to make it more challenging
  • NCTM Fill a box with cubes - more advanced activity for learning about volume
  • YouTube Measuring Capacity video from India - cartoon that goes through measurement in litres in some detail.
  • Pour to Score - using two containers of different sizes, try to pour, empty and fill to make amounts of water to 1 through 8 quarts (yes, quarts). Requires some good understanding of containers, capacity and logic, lots of fun!
  • Volume Puzzle - like Pour to Score, a puzzle where you have to measure out a fixed volume of water using filling, emptying and pouring, but a little easier. (Also avoids metric/imperial issues by using "units" of water)
  • Thirsty? A one star challenge at nrich.org that is more logic than capacity but reinforces the vocabulary of capacity.
  • Measuring Cylinder - a graduated measuring cylinder that you can virtually pour liquid into to practice reading the scale.
  • The One Thousand Millilitre Chocolate Waterfall - a short and cute video where disappointment ensues when it turns out that 1000 millilitres is less than expected. (YouTube 1:20)
  • Making a Spirometer (measure lung capacity) from household items - an interesting look at measuring the capacity of something that seems difficult to measure (YouTube 3:29)

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